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MAINE HISTORICAL SOC I ETY/5' '"'"'' 



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LONGFELLOW MEMORIAL FUND 



By the deed of Mrs. Anne Longfellow Pierce, the sister of the poet Longfellow, the 
Maine Historical Society holds the title, and is now in possession of the Wadsworth-Long- 
fellow house in Portland, the familiar colonial mansion, which dates from the period of the 
American Revolution, is associated with the revolutionary fame of General Peleg Wads- 
worth, the father of Longfellow's mother, and was the home of the poet himself during his 
childhood and early manhood and until he was appointed Professor in Bowdoin Colic 
Here his first, and some of his later, literary work was done. To this house, still in the p 
session of his family, he was accustomed all his life to make an annual visit. His mind often 
reverted, with peculiar interest, to the scenes and surroundings of this early home. 

From the deck of the steamer approaching our harbor, he wrote in his journal, " At 
sunrise I caught a glimpse of the fair city of my birth, rising beautifully in terraces above the 
sea, — the calm, solemn sea, that I have seen so often, and that Jean Paul longed to see once 
before he died. A glorious scene, with market boats rowing city-ward, rocks, promontories, 
light-houses, forts and wooded islands." 

From its doors during his visits in Portland he writes of setting out on early morning 
walks, " through the streets of the beautiful town, as far as Bramhall's Hill, looking down 
upon Deering's Woods," or of strolling down town, meeting the familiar faces of people 
whom he knew when a boy, or to the old fort on Munjoy, " which, as a boy of seven, I helped 
to build by rolling stones down the hill," or to the foot of Elm street at sunset, to watch the 
" shadows of the opposite shore, deepened, on one edge, into the blacker hues of the wood- 
lands and fields, and, on the other, softened into the silvery tints of the water " — or of driv- 
ing to the beautiful promontory and heights north of the city, towards Fa^'V v,:':, 
Stroudwater, Westbrook and Gorham. 

It was here, in this home, he lingered by the bedside of his loved and honored fathr-- 
and, when all was over and he was returning to Cambridge, the stones on the hillside in our 
Western Cemetery, gleaming white, seemed in the sensitiveness of his grief to wave to him 
his father's last adieu. 

The old First Parish church, where he was accustomed to worship and whose pastor 
was his lifelong friend, still stands near by, just as when the young Longfellow left our city. 



^ 



Mrs. Pierce's deed makes the Historical Society trustee, on certain terms, to hold the 
title and to keep the property in its present condition, as a memorial of the poet in all the 
future. Besides careful provisions to this end, the Historical Society is required to make its 
own permanent home upon the premises, to erect in the rear of the house a hall for its cabi- 
net and library, and to remove them there within reasonable time, there to remain. The 
place of deposit for the Society's valuable collections, published and unpublished, must of 
course be in a building of fireproof construction. 

At its annual meeting in June, 1901, the Historical Society decided to accept this 
generous gift, thereby engaging to fulfil the conditions of the deed. To meet them all in 
their full meaning and spirit, as the Society is now bound to do, a fund of from seventy-five 
to a hundred thousand dollars will be required. 

! he Historical Society was doubtless selected as trustee, in this instance, because of 
its interest in all that tends to illustrate the history of Maine, or to perpetuate the monu- 
ments of its past ; — but it is not a moneyed institution and has no fund available for this 
purpose. Its acceptance of the gift and assumption of the obligation of the deed proceed 
upon the feeling that the rare munificence of Mrs. Pierce is not a thing to be refused ; upon 
the belief, also, that an imperative public duty requires the preservation of property so rich 
in associations, memorable as they are imperishable, and that public regret, tending almost to 
indignation, would follow the destruction of it or its abandonment to business purposes. The 
Society confidently expects that, while it has not itself the resources required to meet the 
obligations it has undertaken, the citizens of Portland and of the State of Maine, natives of 
Maine who are now resident beyond its limits, many of whom have won wealth and honor 
abroad, and admirers everywhere of the most loved and most illustrious of American poets, 
will be glad to aid the Society in fulfilling its duty as trustee for the public under this deed 
from Mrs. Pierce ; so that it may be able to hold in perpetuity, and to preserve from genera- 
tion to generation, the home where the boyhood and youth of Longfellow dreamed and 
aspired, from which his footsteps set forth to the larger fields where his genius was to do its 
beautiful and beneficent work for the world, and to which they always fondly returned. 

The ~^a-rm of deep sensibility, of early and affectionate memory, as all the world 
knows, is ii ery line of Longfellow's letters and poems which touch upon this old home. 
The house ren lins as he remembered it in his boyhood, the atmosphere of the place full of 
recollections of him in that bright period when 

the boy's will was the wind's will 

And the thoughts of youth were long, long thoughts, 

when the lingering impression silently stole upon his mind of shadowy lines of trees, 



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"The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, 

* . * * * * 

And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
And the magic of the sea." 

Here are his own rooms, where visions, glimmering upon his thought at night, during 
laborious days were written out in sentences of " airy gold " by his patient hand ; the win- 
dows, from which he and his distinguished brothers, when they were young, were accustomed 
to look out upon the mountains and the sea ; the scene of the beautiful home life, of which 
his poetry is perhaps the tenderest and truest expression in all the range of our language, of 
fireside memories, which shine in many passages of his later works, the radiance of which 
was a subtle influence to mould his life and character to the beauty of his own ideals. 

Years ago, when it was proposed to erect in Portland a statue of Longfellow, our 
Longfellow Statue Association said: " It would be a strange neglect of a beautifLii o ■ ' 
approved custom, both of ancient and of modern times, if the traveler, familiar with the pc" 
life and works, with the sculptures which preserve his face and figure and attest his fame ana 
influence in other cities and lands, were to find, at his birthplace, no worthy memorial of him." 

The response to this appeal was immediate. A noble statue of the poet now graces 
Longfellow Square. 

The question is no longer one of erecting a monument to his memory, but of keeping 
intact for all coming time a monument already built, more intimately associated with his life 
and thought, more eloquent of him, than it would be possible now to construct of marble or 
of bronze. 

Within the limits of our state, is there a memorial of the past, the loss of which would 
cause so universal regret, over the preservation of which so many family circles would rejoice ? 

The hearty co-operation of the entire community is earnestly solicited; — children, in 
the poetry of whose lives he so delighted to share, whose voices were to him as the sound of 
glancing waters in the desert, with love for whom his pages glow, men and women, who find 
in his writings something to heighten the joy of the happiest moments, as well as to mitigate 
the bitterness of life's recurring sorrows, all are invited. The place will be sacred to ♦^he 
lovers of Longfellow the world over. 

While it is believed that those who can will give generously, the smallest coi- 
tions will be welcomed, and it is hoped that those, whose means are not equal to their will to 
help, will not be deterred from giving because others are in a position to contribute more 
largely than they. 

The names of all who subscribe will be enrolled in a volume, to be always open to 
visitors at the Longfellow house. 



Contributions may be sent to Fritz H. Jordan, Esquire, Treasurer, Portland, Maine. 
They will be at once directly acknowledged to those from whom they are received, and the 
fund will be kept wholly separate as " The Longfellow Memorial Fund of the Maine Histor- 
ical Society," until applied to the use for which it is given. 

The Maine Historical Society, by 



James P. Baxter, President^ 
John Marshall Brown, 
Eugene Hale, 
Henry L. Chapman, 
John Carroll Perkins, 
Joshua L. Chamberlain, 
Henry Deering, 



John F. Hill, 
William P. Frye, 
Thomas B. Reed, 
Joseph W. Symonds, 
Charles F. Libby, 
Franklin A. Wilson, 
Fritz H. Jordan, 

Comhiitlee. 










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